"Shaun Van Poecke" wrote in
:

Im sure heaps of people out there must be carrying their laptops on
board when they are cruising for navigation/internet.... what is the
general consensus on life?

They work fine until someone drops them on the dock, drives over them in
the marina parking lot (seen that), drops them down the companionway
ladder (that really does 'em in), etc.

Do they suffer a lot from corosion?
No, the keyboards are rubber switches and work fine IF YOU KEEP THEM OUT
OF THE SPRAY, of course.

is
anybody opening up their laptop and sparying the circuitboards with
anything?

Keep your fingers out of it. Static electricity does in computers, like
spraying air across things....not good.


I have two notebooks that id like to carry permanently on a
thunderbird 26, mainly for navigation use, so they'll be on most of
the time and id like them to last at least a couple of years if
possible.... I had the idea of separating the screen and the
motherboard/HDD, encasing most of it in a waterproof container,
nolting the screen to a bulkhead and using an external keyboard.... a
bit over the top?

A bit over the top...agreed. Lionheart's sits atop the chart table until
it's time to use the Yeoman to plot the next point on the paper chart
under the computer. I usually lay it open on its side so it doesn't fall
over if we're on a port tack.


Is anyone shockproofing their laptop, or just sitting them on a table?


At sea, we leave it open against the chart table with a mini bungee cord
around the bottom of the screen hooked around two little hooks screwed
unceremoniously into the fine mahogany wood of Amel's chart table. The
hooks stop it in one direction. The bungee stops it in the others. If
it tries to fall over backwards because the top is leaning back so we can
see it down the hatch from the helmsman's seat, it can't because it's
already leaning against the panel behind it. They only fall over
backwards. A laptop and its hard drive are made for shock, up to a
point. That point is a lot more shock than your boat pounding in the
waves as long as it can't jump off onto the deck.

Notebook is a Dell Latitude aboard. Cap'n Geoffrey's rich boss bought
him a new one after he backed over the old one at a golf course...(c;
Those Hummer H3s really can crush a plastic laptop FLAT!